


green was the grass

by but_seriously



Category: The Great (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Relationships: Catherine/Peter III (The Great TV 2020)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 94





	green was the grass

**Author's Note:**

> as a special treat for reading this, you are all allowed to suspend your disbelief for extra enjoyment.

  
  


**green was the grass;**

  
  


The Swedes decide to visit one summer that could only be described as vividly sweltering. Hugo and Peter spend long afternoons yelling ‘rabbit’ and shooting at nothing; Agnes and Catherine take a turn about her private library, commenting on this title or that. Their first ever royal couple friends bring along with them dogs and cats and acrobats; hallon and körsbär and jordgubbar; theatre and art and a brand new printing press of the latest model. 

Peter presents the grand appetizers of their summer dinner: pan-seared foie gras spelling out KING HUGO, and a relatively smaller _queenagnes_. Hugo giggles in glee.

Hugo takes an immense liking to smash bottles. Agnes kisses his ball before he swings it back - all but three of his bottles go down.

Two turns later Peter gets the same idea. He rushes to Catherine, who looks bewildered to have been pulled out of her commentary with Orlo. With unpractised swiftness Peter pulls her up to him and presses a kiss to her lips.

“For luck,” he says when he pulls back. He has the temerity to wink at her.

Catherine wills her fingers not to to graze the spot on her lips that Peter had touched with his.

  
  


&

  
  


The days continue.

The days get cooler.

On the first day of autumn Hugo and Agnes leave in a crash and bang of fireworks that Peter had insisted on. Many of the court suffered singed wigs for that night, all but Peter, who had pulled Orlo in front of his line of fire.

Hugo’s brilliant smile had dimmed somewhat by the time he climbed into his carriage, but all in all it was a pretty good visit. 

And finally, there is peace and quiet in the court.

More importantly there is a tree on the edge of the vast greens that Catherine has a particular fondness for. It reaches up into the sky with the vigour of a child excited for first snowfall. In the winter it looks especially dashing, and she used to enjoy imagining it in battle-weary uniform, finally come to take her away from this madness.

Now she mostly comes here to read the days away when her study feels too stifling. Back home she always had the run of the garden whenever she had a new book; mother knew well enough to leave her lunch on the little table father had set up just for her, and she would lay nestled in the roots of their great oak tree, turning pages with enraptured focus.

She cannot quite tether her joy the same way anymore, not since coming here. But it remains a pleasant respite. For once, she does not have to think about anything more pressing than the new tome Volti - as she had come to calling him as well much to Peter’s delight - had written. He had sent it to her with nothing but a little caricature of his wink scrawled on the cover, that French fuck.

She is barely a quarter way through when she hears the sound of panting and leaves breaking underfoot. She shifts under the blanket she’d brought along and tries to peer behind the thick trunk of the tree. Craning her neck, she sees nothing.

Someone taps on her shoulder, and she screams.

“Wife!” Peter yelps back.

“What are you doing here!” she splutters. _In my sanctuary,_ she adds, silently dismayed.

“I run here,” Peter says too casually.

“You run in the woods on the north of the palace,” she accuses.

Peter shifts his gaze to the leaves overhead. “I have decided to try a new route.”

“This path is utterly uninteresting for a run.”

“I dare not say the same. It led me to you, did it not?”

Catherine falls silent, struck.

“I suppose you will be on your way now,” she prompts once she finds her voice. She looks pointedly down at her book, barely broken in.

“Oh, is that the new Volti?” Peter asks with interest, and with no invitation whatsoever crawls into the space her blanket allowed and grabs the the note Volti had written, slipped from the middle of the book, from her hand.

“Interesting,” Peter muses.

“You’re studying the diagram upside down.”

Unperturbed Peter just flips the note over and nods as if impressed. “Even more so!”

Catherine chuckles. “You are ridiculous, husband.”

“ _You_ are the ridiculous one, isolating yourself on such a beautifully orange morning.”

“Perhaps I wanted the solitude.” Her lips twitch. “The _quiet_.”

“Do you not want for company?” Peter asks, a little too quickly to be feigned as glibness. 

Catherine looks at him closer. “Do you?”

Peter just huffs. “I am tired and cold from my run. Shift over so the blanket covers _both_ of us properly, thank you very much.”

Their knees knock together. The blanket was barely big enough to cover one person, let alone two. She has to practically sit between Peter’s legs. It didn’t occur to her that maybe she could have just let Peter have the whole blanket, it was not _that_ col--

Peter’s breath ghosts her ear and she gives a full bodied shiver.

Forget it, it was cold alright.

Peter clears his throat and solemnly announces, “ _Results of the execution of Jean Calas._ ”

Catherine hides her smile as Peter attempts to read what must be to him ancient Latin. She rests her chin on his shoulder as she reads with him, and every so often laughs when Peter says something stupid like, “I don’t know about you, but Volti’s hair seemed a little phallic on his last visit, did it not?”

“Just turn the page,” she says instead of confirming her agreement.

&

At the end of Winter it starts to heat up miraculously quickly. Everyone rejoices, and Peter demands a bonfire. The fire does not survive as long as everyone wants with the ground still so damp from melting snow still, but does its job in cheering the court.

Perhaps too good a job, because with the screens to bear the harsh cold of their winter still secured to the windows, it became an obstacle for the sudden heat spell and for Catherine, who was trying to adjust to the sudden warmth of the night. 

It was odd: all winter she’d longed for a burst of heat, for her bed to be placed right next to the fireplace. Her night gown was not suited for the occasion: all at once it seemed too thick, too long. She huffs out in frustration as it becomes clear she won’t be able to sleep until she’s cooled.

She wishes for the thigh-grazing hems of Peter’s breezy tunics.

Her mind made up, she creeps her way down the hall and turns corners until she finds Peter’s quarters. He is sleeping soundly which she is grateful for, and makes her way as quietly as possible to his wardrobe. It is a little deeper than expected, perhaps put away to make space for the thicker clothes this winter demanded, but she finds what she is looking for. Shucking her nightdress quickly in favour of her husband’s shirt, she sighs when the cool material skims the skin over her shoulders, her stomach. She is comfortable in an instant.

In fact, Peter’s room was a lot cooler than hers. She frowns and goes to investigate.

Her eyes land immediately on the gash in the screen of his windows. The obvious tool for the crime was in an axe lying on the floor amongst splinters. Had he really smashed his screen in, in a fit of rage? Was she really all that surprised?

Not really.

At any rate, it isn’t fair that he gets to sleep in comfort while she absolutely _writhed_ in the heat - in her lack of sleep she may have, perhaps, exaggerated the details a little.

Peter wakes immediately when she clambers into bed beside him, dipping her toes into his bed which is devoid of any warming pans. Of course. She had forgotten about them, too used to them by now to think anything out of the ordinary. 

“Mmm,” Catherine sighs contentedly as she burrows herself deeper into the covers. 

“I see you are reaping the benefits of _my_ hard work,” Peter smirks. “You are lucky I have just learned that intolerance is humanly unlawful, so I suppose you may stay.”

“You suppose,” Catherine coos mockingly, and Peter blinks in her change of demeanour. He remembers distractedly that she had received word from home today. She is always extra bouncy whenever that happens. He wonders if her father had sent her any trinkets like last time, when he’d found her turning a little chess piece in her hands over and over again, her eyes sombre.

Peter decides to say nothing about it lest he break whatever spell she is in, but does tug his share of the blanket back to his side. He had not been exaggerating earlier; Catherine was hogging the sheets and he did not abide that.

Catherine rolls her eyes and relinquishes her grip on his blanket, and Peter stumbles once again.

“What are you wearing?” he asks dumbly.

“A tunic.” She sniffs. “It is objectively unjust how men have far more liberating choice in clothes.”

The candles that usually lit his brain had all gone out at the same time.

“I petition for you to decree corsets unnecessary for the coming spring and summer.” She leans in conspiratorially. “It would be most progressive.”

“Indeed,” he repeats, not understanding one bit. “Shall we - shall we get to writing?”

“In the morning,” Catherine says, satisfied. “For now let’s sleep so spring comes faster.”

Peter nods. Their thighs press together. He smells her hair. They fall asleep.

&

On the first day of spring he finds Catherine waiting for him at breakfast, standing in the first rays of sun, ringing her in halos, her hazy silhouette revealing the natural shape of her body. She turns and grins at him.

When he reaches for her cheek, she lets him.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> prompt: peter/catherine + “a kiss for good luck?” + “i’m tired, just cuddle me.” + “is that my shirt?”


End file.
